Audia buying liquid masterbatch plant from BASF

By: Frank Esposito

February 19, 2014

Audia International — owner of three U.S.-based materials firms — is buying a liquid masterbatch plant in France from BASF SE.

No terms were included in a Feb. 19 news release. The plant is in Clermont de l’Oise, a city of about 10,000 in northern France. Officials with Ludiwgshafen, Germany-based BASF said that their firm is selling the plant in order to focus on solid and powder masterbatches. For BASF, liquid masterbatches “are a niche business and not part of its future focus,” they said.

The transaction is expected to close in mid-2014. Officials with Washington, Pa.-based Audia said in the release that the acquisition “is very strategic and represents an exciting expansion in technology, markets and geography.” Audia will run the liquid masterbatch plant as part of Uniform Color Co., a color concentrates maker based in Holland, Mich.

Uniform Color also operates a plant in Mexico and has manufacturing partnerships with firms in England and China. An Audia-owned plant in Slovakia is shared by Uniform Color and Washington Penn Plastic Co., a Washington, Pa.-based firm that ranks as one of North America’s largest polypropylene compounders.

Audia also owns Southern Polymer Inc., a resin distributor based in Atlanta. In total, Audia firms employ more than 1,000 at 10 manufacturing sites in North America and Europe.